MIDDLE GROUND

The Middle Ground is a night safety respite center that aims to fill the gap between night life, law enforcement, and emergent healthcare. In recognition that women, femme, and fetishzied bodies are at greater risk at night, this facility provides a welcoming and secure short term space for occupants of the night. The project is a moment of relief and intervention that is missing within night life’s social taboo and the ways it functions within larger sociopolitical systems of inequity. The Middle Ground strives to ensure people are equipped with the services, knowledge, and resources to have fun responsibly, move without fear, and most importantly: get home safe.

Situated in an adaptive re-use in the Greenwich Village Northern Dispensary building, the site is betwixt: rapid residential development, historic queer nightlife, dark parks, and student communtes. This publically-zoned historic building has confused NYC for decades -- toggling between desolate darkness and hostile florencense; open to the public and boarded up. This design harnesses the site’s potential into a beacon of safety for the public. Through lighting, architectural draping, and material layering this building is curated to be easily identifable, navigatable, and trusted to those in altered psycholgocal states. Whether they are sober, panicked, or ineibreated -- this project opens to and cloaks its occupants so that they can find the community, safety, and knowledge that is prepared to protect them.